"All forms of exercise are as good as, or better than, medication and talking therapies." That was the press release for a February 2026 umbrella review, not what the paper could support. The sturdier evidence came a month earlier: Cochrane's update, 73 trials and nearly 5,000 adults, found exercise gives a moderate benefit for depression, holding up solidly against psychotherapy but on thin, low-certainty evidence against medication. The flashy paper pooled meta-analyses, 87 percent of them rated low or critically low quality, with no head-to-head trial behind the "beats" claim. As one UCL professor put it, no one on medication or in therapy should stop on the strength of it. The honest sentence is narrower than the headline: exercise helps, moderately, for many people, with a safety profile pills cannot match. A case for adding a walk, not subtracting a prescription.
"Exercise Helps Depression. The 'Beats Medication' Headlines Went Too Far"
A rigorous Cochrane review found exercise moderately helps depression, holding up solidly against psychotherapy but resting on thinner evidence against medication, while a flashier 2026 paper claiming outright superiority was publicly challenged by the scientists who study it.
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